


Chasing Banner

by FemSanzo291



Series: Keeping Secrets [15]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Incredible Hulk (2008)
Genre: Always Deaf Clint, Deaf Clint Barton, Gen, Kid Peter Parker, Like a single mention, Minor Clint Barton/Phil Coulson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2020-05-19 21:34:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19364470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FemSanzo291/pseuds/FemSanzo291
Summary: Bruce Banner first turned into the Hulk on April 16, 2005. He'd disappear not long after. Alea remembered him and wanted to help him. Sadly Alea's luck is not on her side.AKA: The first half of The Incredible Hulk from Alea's point of view.





	1. April 16, 2005

**Author's Note:**

> So I wasn't going to do this until I watched the Marvel One-Shot "The Consultant". Which reminded me that Ross is an ass, and that SHIELD would've been tracking Banner. That and in looking at the timeline on the MCU timeline for the 2000s I saw things that suggested that SHIELD was looking for Banner until right before Tony got himself blown up.
> 
> I have also started to use exact dates by the MCU timeline on the MCU fandom pages.

Alea Carter was sitting in her lab when the door was tossed open. She turned to see Coulson. His chest was heaving.

 

"Coulson, what's up?" Alea slid her glasses from her face. She knew that Coulson wouldn't mind an accidental entrance into his mind.

 

"You haven't watched the news?" 

 

"No, I've been working on Clint's new hearing aids. What happened?"

 

"Remember how I told you that Thaddeus Ross was up to something?" 

 

Alea nodded as Coulson sat at the other desk. "Well, apparently whatever he was doing at Culver University went wrong. Or at least I hope that's what happened." 

 

Coulson picked up the TV remote and turned it on. He then flipped it to WHiH News. The TV was muted, but the headline read, Attack at Culver University. Coulson unmuted the TV.

 

**"Today there was an attack at Culver University in Virginia today. Several people were injured by what is described as a green monster,"** Everhart reported. Coulson remuted the TV.

 

"You have a list of injured already don't you?" Alea leaned back in her chair and leveled a look at Coulson.

 

"We do. I only was interested in it because Thaddeus Ross and his daughter Elizabeth Ross were both injured. Elizabeth Ross was working on that pet project of Thaddeus's. You know the one that Congress has stopped funding?" Coulson paused as Alea nodded in understanding, "Well there was a third person working on the project. One Dr. Robert Bruce Banner. He's currently missing by all reports."

 

"Banner? I had classes with him in 1987."

 

"I'm going to figure out if I can't find out what Ross was actually doing with that project."

 

"Alright. See you later."

 

Coulson left the lab. Alea sat there in her chair looking dumbfounded for quite a while. When she did move again she did so in a hurry.

 

She left her lab and headed to the records room. She knew that Thaddeus Ross's project was trying to recreate Project Rebirth. She'd written reports on why it wouldn't work. She needed to find the report and then Coulson and Fury. If Banner had changed the radiation type he could have caused what happened at Culver University.

 

She quickly found her written reports. All ten of them. She took them before running to Fury's office. She didn't knock before shoving the door open. 

 

"Carter, what the fuck do you think you're doing?" Fury leveled a furious look on her. She didn't stop moving though. It almost caused her to trip over Goose, though the Flerken moved before she could trip over her.

 

"You know of the incident at Culver University? It was likely caused by Thaddeus Ross's idea to try and recreate Project Rebirth. He recruited Bruce Banner because of his studies. One of which is on gamma radiation." Alea paused for just a second.

 

"Do you mean to say that they could have just remade the formula that made Captain America, but made a single mistake in the radiation type and caused that?" Fury pointed to the paused video on the flat screen TV. It was of the green monster.

 

"Yes, exactly. I don't age because of the alpha radiation I was exposed to. Gamma radiation is what the Tesseract puts out, and we've seen what that can do."

 

"I'll get a team on it. Leave the reports that you wrote up."

 

Alea nods and places the files on the desk before leaving. She walks back to her lab and starts up a new file on Ross's research.


	2. April 22, 2005

It was early as Alea went over the military reports on the green beast that they named 'Hulk'. She wanted to know the name of the person who was turning into him.

Not long after dawn, she'd gotten a notice that new reports had come in, and she'd immediately got to work looking over them. She was hoping that this report would have who was the Hulk. As she read through the long file with little new information she found what she was looking for. The name printed on the bottom of the last file, Dr. Robert Bruce Banner.

"Shit. Of course, he was. Of course, he'd do it to himself." Alea was ranting so hard that she missed her lab door opening and Coulson and Clint entering.

"Alea you alright over there?" Clint asked letting go of Coulson's hand.

Alea turned to look at the pair. Her face showed her frustration. Coulson moved to comfort Alea, but she moved out of the way.

"Alea, what's up? You're worrying me." Coulson sat down on the edge of the desk.

"You know Ross's project, and how I've been looking into it right? Well, I got hold of a new report. It revealed the name of the person turned into the Hulk, Dr. Robert Bruce Banner. Which means that he didn't know what he was truly doing."

Clint looked hard at her. He'd been out of the loop on what was going on because he and Natasha were on a mission. Clint had heard about the Hulk but didn't know much else.

"This Dr. Banner, isn't he some big scientist that SHIELD wanted to recruit at some point?" Clint moved to get the other rolling chair.

“Yes, but Ross got to him first.” Alea shifted back into her seat.

It was quite in the lab until Alea stood to go to Fury's office. Once she made it up to the office she pushed the door open and reported about what she'd found. Fury dismissed her, but as she left she heard him call for Hill. They were going to take care of this, but only after they dealt with Ross.


	3. February 12, 2006

Alea was watching Peter when her phone went off. She knew that ringtone it was Fury's. She knew that she would have to take the call. The four-year-old looked up at her as she stood. He placed the Lego plane on the floor before he started to stand.

 

"I've got to take this Pete. I'll just be down the hall. Is that alright with you?" 

 

Peter nodded and Alea promised herself that if Fury took more then ten minutes she would hang up on him. Peter was still sensitive from the death of his parents about five months before.

 

She grabbed her phone and made her way down the hall. She could still see Peter in the living room of the small apartment as she answered the phone.

 

"This better be good, Fury," Alea said instead of greeting the Director of SHIELD.

 

**"Banner emailed Elizabeth Ross a few days ago. Lieutenant General Ross intercepted it. Nothing much has come of it. It seems like that can't get a reliable location from it."**

 

"Fury, is that all?" Alea was tapping her toes as she watched Peter play.

 

**"Yes, I thought you would want to know. You seemed interested back when Banner first turned."**

 

"I am, but I'm still helping May and Ben Parker get Peter settled. Seeing as you keep on sending Coulson, Clint, and Natasha on missions I'm the only one that really knows him. Anyway, I've got to go." Alea didn't wait for a reply before hanging up. She walked back down the hall and sat on the floor next to Peter. 

 

"Aunt Alea?" 

 

"Yes?" 

 

"Who were you on the phone with just then?" 

 

"My boss. Don't worry he's just informing me of someone that we're looking for. Nothing to worry about Pete." Alea gathered Peter up in her lap. She hated that one day Peter would be too big to do this too. She knew she needed to work on finding Banner before Ross, but Peter was her main priority right now.


	4. June 3, 2006

Coulson made his way to the Parker's apartment with a few newspaper clippings with him. It had been a while since he'd really seen Alea because she was helping settle Mary and Richard's son, Peter. It was already late and he hoped to hell that Peter was already asleep.

He made his way up the four flights of stairs and down the hall. Once he stood outside of apartment 4E he knocked on the door. When the door opened to reveal Alea, Coulson gave a little smile.

"What do you have for me, Phil?" Alea stepped out into the hall and closed the door.

"Newspaper clippings. Most of them about Hulk, and a few about Banner before his transformation. Fury's got a team tracking him, but it's slow going." Coulson handed the file over.

Alea takes it before heading back into the apartment. Coulson listens for a few minutes for other activities then Alea going through the file. When he hears none he leaves. He knows that Alea will spend the night going over the file.

It seemed odd to Coulson that she was more interested in Banner than the rest of SHIELD. He wondered if that she'd met him before. Within a year from then, SHIELD would officially join up with Ross to find Banner. Nothing big would happen for several years though.


	5. March 10, 2008

Even though SHIELD had officially stopped looking for Banner, Alea didn't. She wanted to find the man that she'd met in college and apologize for not taking his calls. She knew that the timid man that she'd met that year was still inside him. Even though he did turn into a big green rage monster.

She'd heard about the incident with Johnson, and it didn't surprise her. Johnson wasn't all that tactful, to begin with, and when Fury gets involved it's even worse. Most agents would go to hell if it would please Fury, and Johnson was one of them.

Alea hated the fact that they almost had Banner and then Fury's plan had to go belly side up. Which meant that any time she wasn't on a mission or watching Peter she was looking for Banner. He'd definitely stayed in Africa, but past that it was hard to tell.

She scoured every news article and every military report that she could get her hands on that even mentioned Dr. Banner or his alter ego the Hulk. This would be how she spent her time even after her brother revealed himself to be Iron Man, until the Battle of Harlem.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the main battle part of The Incredible Hulk movie is in The Expo, The Hammer, and Banner - 2010 along with Thor 1 and Iron Man 2, which is why it isn't in this fic. I have Iron Man 1 and the mid part of The Incredible Hulk separated out because I looked back over it and it doesn't really overlap too much. That and Alea doesn't really interact with either Tony or Banner during this time. So your going to have to wait for me to post the Iron Man 1 fic before I come back to the end of The Incredible Hulk.


End file.
